Being A Nanny Distributing your time is one of the key factors in having a strong, successful academic career, especially when you have to balance a job that is very time consuming. Over the past year, I was a nanny for a family who lived about five minutes down the road from me. I worked about twelve to thirteen hours a week on top of doing extracurricular activities, such as being on the planning committee for Relay for Life, French Club, and Cancer Awareness Club. Within this past year of high school, I learned a lot about myself through my job as a nanny.
Over the summer in between junior year and senior year, a woman named Gail called me and asked if I would be interested in coming over to watch her children every Thursday and Friday after school from 2:30 to around 8:30 or 9:00. I drove over to their house for an interview and to meet each of the girls, Kelly and Tara. Kelly is twelve and Tara is ten, so although some people may say these girls didn’t need a nanny, I was more of a temporary big sister to them. Gail explained that I would be responsible for the tasks a full-time nanny would be; I cooked, cleaned, watched the girls, took them wherever they needed to go (whether it was to a softball game, to the movies, to a friends house, to dance, etc.), and picked them up from wherever they happened to be that afternoon.
Having this job forced me to be a role model for these young girls. I had to rearrange my schoolwork and schedule in order to be available for them on the days that they needed me. Knowing I had to be somewhere at a certain time forced me to break out of being a procrastinator and stay on top of things. I started to do my homework and projects the day I was handed the assignment instead of waiting until the last minute. I alsobegan to hangout in the library during my free periods in school to work on my homework instead of wasting the period in the crowded senior lounge. School has always come easily to me and being a procrastinator was the way I went through my schooling. I never realized how much better of a student I could be if I stayed on top of things instead of waiting until the last minute. Not procrastinating allowed me to set a positive image for these girls and become a productive role model.
While I was watching the girls, they would normally ask me for help with their homework. I tried to help them as best I could and as patiently as I could manage. I reworded what I was trying to explain time and time again until they understood what I was trying to say. Once they got what I was trying to explain and it clicked in their mind, I would see a theoretical light bulb go on over their head. Their look of understanding helped me realize that I wanted to work with children and teach them something in the future for my career.
At the time, I was seriously considering being a Sign Language major because I thought I wanted to work with people in the deaf community. However, after working with Kelly and Tara, I looked into different professions that allowed me to work with both the deaf community and with children specifically. I’m not quite sure how I stumbled upon Speech Pathology on the internet, but nonetheless, I fell in love with the description of the profession. I immediately told my parents about my new discovery and my dad put me in touch with a Speech-Language Professor at SUNY Cortland.
I drove up to Cortland one weekend to discuss the profession and the daily tasks of a Speech Pathologist. This meeting pushed me to commit to a Communicative Disorder major here at URI. I loved the idea of helping those who need treatments on their speech impediment or disorder and meeting individual patient needs to provide a treatment plan that works best with them. I did plenty of research on different universities with programs for a CMD major, however the University of Rhode Island was by far the most outstanding.
Being a nanny last year was a huge beneficiary to my academic success. Having a family rely on me, pushed me to become a better time manager and helped me realize what direction I wanted to steer my undergraduate studies. I am grateful that I got to work so closely with a family who influenced almost every aspect of my life, academically and otherwise
Distributing your time is one of the key factors in having a strong, successful academic career, especially when you have to balance a job that is very time consuming. Over the past year, I was a nanny for a family who lived about five minutes down the road from me. I worked about twelve to thirteen hours a week on top of doing extracurricular activities, such as being on the planning committee for Relay for Life, French Club, and Cancer Awareness Club. Within this past year of high school, I learned a lot about myself through my job as a nanny.
Over the summer in between junior year and senior year, a woman named Gail called me and asked if I would be interested in coming over to watch her children every Thursday and Friday after school from 2:30 to around 8:30 or 9:00. I drove over to their house for an interview and to meet each of the girls, Kelly and Tara. Kelly is twelve and Tara is ten, so although some people may say these girls didn’t need a nanny, I was more of a temporary big sister to them. Gail explained that I would be responsible for the tasks a full-time nanny would be; I cooked, cleaned, watched the girls, took them wherever they needed to go (whether it was to a softball game, to the movies, to a friends house, to dance, etc.), and picked them up from wherever they happened to be that afternoon.
Having this job forced me to be a role model for these young girls. I had to rearrange my schoolwork and schedule in order to be available for them on the days that they needed me. Knowing I had to be somewhere at a certain time forced me to break out of being a procrastinator and stay on top of things. I started to do my homework and projects the day I was handed the assignment instead of waiting until the last minute. I alsobegan to hangout in the library during my free periods in school to work on my homework instead of wasting the period in the crowded senior lounge. School has always come easily to me and being a procrastinator was the way I went through my schooling. I never realized how much better of a student I could be if I stayed on top of things instead of waiting until the last minute. Not procrastinating allowed me to set a positive image for these girls and become a productive role model.
While I was watching the girls, they would normally ask me for help with their homework. I tried to help them as best I could and as patiently as I could manage. I reworded what I was trying to explain time and time again until they understood what I was trying to say. Once they got what I was trying to explain and it clicked in their mind, I would see a theoretical light bulb go on over their head. Their look of understanding helped me realize that I wanted to work with children and teach them something in the future for my career.
At the time, I was seriously considering being a Sign Language major because I thought I wanted to work with people in the deaf community. However, after working with Kelly and Tara, I looked into different professions that allowed me to work with both the deaf community and with children specifically. I’m not quite sure how I stumbled upon Speech Pathology on the internet, but nonetheless, I fell in love with the description of the profession. I immediately told my parents about my new discovery and my dad put me in touch with a Speech-Language Professor at SUNY Cortland.
I drove up to Cortland one weekend to discuss the profession and the daily tasks of a Speech Pathologist. This meeting pushed me to commit to a Communicative Disorder major here at URI. I loved the idea of helping those who need treatments on their speech impediment or disorder and meeting individual patient needs to provide a treatment plan that works best with them. I did plenty of research on different universities with programs for a CMD major, however the University of Rhode Island was by far the most outstanding.
Being a nanny last year was a huge beneficiary to my academic success. Having a family rely on me, pushed me to become a better time manager and helped me realize what direction I wanted to steer my undergraduate studies. I am grateful that I got to work so closely with a family who influenced almost every aspect of my life, academically and otherwise